A Different Imprint
by ChrissiHR
Summary: AU: Quil and Claire have a very different imprint, one that leads to a very different kind of family after the reason for their imprint becomes obvious. Quil has only ever wanted to give Claire a safe, stable home. Claire's greatest wish is for her Uncle Quil's happiness ... with her Aunt Leah. All they really need is a little nudge, right? Rated T, lang. One-shot-turned-3-shot.
1. Like a Duck to Water

**Pairing:** Claire, Quil/Leah

**Genre:** Hurt/Comfort/Family (some tragedy, mentions of character death)

**Rating:** M, strong language

**Origin: **Tricky Raven's Weekly Flashfic Challenge Prompt #24, Uncle Quil

**With huge thanks to CayStar for giving this a quick beta on the fly. **

**A/N:** _Just a heads up about some other fics while I have your attention. __I'm making the most of the remnants of Spawn's summer vacation now that I'm recovering pretty well from my surgery last month. I've written about 25K words over the last two weeks for "Snowed In" and the auction piece I wrote for TR, "PB&amp;J" as well as my collab with meliz875, "Brothers", so expect to see some fresh action on my multi-chapters soon. Due to waning interest in my short story omni, "Every Dog Has Its Day", I'm going to discontinue that on FFn. I'll continue updating it on TR. You can find it there, if you really want to keep reading those flashfics._

_TR is having a Men in Uniform anonymous one-shot contest for Labor Day. I may be writing something for that, too, if my idea comes together in time, so be sure to check that out._

* * *

**A Different Imprint**

* * *

Claire slumped in her seat, legs crossed at the knee, swinging a pointed teal flat on the tips of her toes.

Running her fingers over the ancient pattern of their shabby kitchen table, she read a text from Cammie Littlesea and punched her calorie count into the new app she downloaded. Setting it aside, she stared into her cup at the creamy texture of the yogurt, swirling it with her spoon, brooding, and dutifully eating her Quil-approved after-school snack before her cousins came home.

She thought Quil was going a little overboard monitoring her diet with the required after-school snacks and the new calorie-counting app, but she'd brought it all on herself, she supposed, trying that stupid fad diet Beyonce swore by and passing out cold in gym class a month ago after a week of near-starvation.

Leah had been the PA on duty that day at the rez clinic. She lectured Claire up one side and down the other about healthy eating habits.

Quil was frantic when he'd run into the exam room minutes later, blaming himself for not putting a stop to it sooner. He was shaking so bad he cracked the door when he closed it.

Leah gave her the stink-eye, pointedly looking back and forth between the two of them until Claire dropped her eyes.

Shame ate at her when Quil picked her up off the exam table and sat right down on the floor with her in his lap, breathing heavy. He couldn't even speak at first, he was so upset.

That brought her to her senses.

If anything happened to her, Quil would never forgive himself, so here she sat, eating her yogurt and pomegranate seeds and dutifully tallying up her daily calories to show him that she was eating enough.

Claire never seemed to be able to make it any easier on him, though.

Poor Quil. He was so often right on the edge of being out of his element, even with the imprint.

He never expected, though, that his imprint would be so different from all the others.

Her biological dad was a deadbeat who took off when she was two and a half. He was young and the responsibility probably was too much for him.

Her mom … maybe she would have been okay, but then her parents refused to help her when Claire's dad took off and Claire's mom was really young, too, still just a kid at eighteen. She could barely take care of herself and her parents had washed their hands of the entire mess, and of Claire, too.

Her mom turned into a junkie tweaker by the time Claire was three and a half. She lived for two things; to get her next fix and forget everything that hurt so bad.

There were weeks at a time when the only food in the house was bought by Quil at his family's store and cooked by Aunt Emily. He made sure she always had fresh milk and clean clothes, and that she spent every day at the community-provided daycare in Neah Bay, even if he had to drop her off and pick her up himself.

And sometimes, when it got real bad, he was the only one there at night to make sure she had a bath and tuck her in.

He read her stories and told her Quileute legends, then crashed in the tiny chair by her bed until her mom came stumbling in sometime in the middle of the night.

He tried to get the tribe to intervene, but the Elders said he should mind his own business and go home to La Push.

They took Claire from her mom on a Tuesday, just scooped her right up at the Makah daycare and she never saw her mom again.

She became a ward of the tribe.

She spent a few days in temporary foster care and never did figure out what her mom had done that time or why she disappeared. The Quileute Council of Elders petitioned the Makah tribe on behalf of her Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily to place her with the Uleys instead of long term foster care since she had no family willing to foster her in Neah Bay.

Things got better for a while. She had a nice room at Aunt Emily's with pretty wallpaper—white with pink roses. The mint green sheets and rose quilt smelled fresh like lavender and someone was always there to hug her tight when she had a bad dream.

Sometimes it was Quil, but not always.

It was like they had a revolving door with all those big people coming and going all the time. Sam, Jake, Paul, Embry, Seth and others would pad into her room by the light of the moon, lift her into strong, caring arms, and hum Quileute lullabies until she drifted off again.

She still saw Quil the most. He was her special uncle, the one who always had time to color and have tea parties, and he made up the best games that he talked all her uncles into playing, too.

Hide and seek was her favorite because they were all so huge, they could hardly hide behind anything without being seen. She was good at that game because she was so small.

Sometimes she begged to play Sardines, though, just to see what happened. Her Uncle Paul was terrible at it because you had to get along and stay quiet and then one of her other uncles would poke at him and they'd end up wrestling on the ground and carrying on.

That was fun, too. Somebody was always covered in mud.

Then, just a year after she moved to La Push, her Uncle Sam died 'in service to the tribe'. That was how they said it, '_in service to the tribe_'. They memorialized him like a hero.

He was a security guard, they said, but she guessed it was a pretty dangerous job if they needed big guys like Uncle Sam to do it.

Aunt Emily got sick when they were planning Uncle Sam's funeral. Real sick. Jake had to pick her up to help her carry out her widow's duties at the service while Quil sat with Claire and the little Uley boys.

Emily couldn't manage them on her own anymore.

She was wasting away to nothing in front of their eyes.

Later, they said she died of a broken heart.

Claire didn't like that she thought that was selfish, but Aunt Emily had had so much to live for. She couldn't understand how she could leave them that way, especially after Uncle Sam died.

She remembered that horrible day, rocking in Uncle Sam's old chair. She had cried in silence for hours in Quil's lap, holding onto Leah's hand for dear life. Leah couldn't have been comfortable, perched on the arm of the chair like that, but she never moved and never complained.

Her cousin, Jason Uley, was just two and his little brother, Kyle, wasn't even a year old. She remembered Jake holding them both and walking miles up and down the hallway, trying to comfort them with that weird rumbling noise he made. And when his arms got tired and his heart hurt too much to continue, Embry took over.

And, still, they cried.

Until Joy asked for the babies when Paul was taking a turn walking with them. She tucked them together into Claire's arms on Quil's lap and she hugged them to her. It was like they could finally breathe for the first time.

Attempts to separate the three of them resulted in disaster afterward. The pack was more than willing to take them all in, but three kids was a lot for any single family to absorb, so they didn't try at first.

Claire had nightmares every night sleeping at Paul and Rachel's house in that big bed all alone.

Jason and Kyle weren't much better off staying with the Clearwaters, even with the pack stopping by at all hours of the day and night to help.

It was Quil who first figured out their most basic need.

They had formed their own little pack in their grief and they needed each other, the pack pups.

Simple as that.

Jake ordered Paul to bring Claire over. They laid them all down together in Seth's old bed for a nap and Claire remembered how nice that was, like sleeping in a big pile of puppies. She hugged Kyle and patted Jay's back and told him it was okay, it would all be okay. That was what adults said to make you feel better when you were sad.

He popped his thumb in his mouth and drifted off to sleep with one of her curls wrapped around his finger.

That was when Quil really got involved and decided a family didn't mean you had to have a mom and a dad all under one roof. The pack was family even with Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily gone, so he thought we could figure out a way to make it work, too.

He did a ton of paperwork and talked to the social worker a lot in quiet meetings at the kitchen table. She, Jason, and Kyle were temporarily placed in the care of Quil's mom and grandfather as wards of the tribe since they were on the Elders Council.

At eighteen years old, Quil adopted her _and_ both of her Uley cousins. He thought it was important to keep them all together and said that nobody was breaking up their little pack if they needed each other, especially if he could help it.

Quil took to fatherhood like a duck to water.

He was like a big kid himself.

There were still nights when dinner ended up burned and he forgot pediatrician and dentist appointments, but they were okay. She had a warm, safe place and she was never hungry and there were always aunts and uncles coming and going so they never had to go to daycare or a babysitter.

They had the pack.

Oh, there were still moments, though. After Old Quil passed, they inherited his house. Quil thought his mom might like a little peace and quiet in her life, so it was decided that Quil and the kids would move into his granddad's old place. The pack helped renovate and add an extra bedroom for Claire—a massive, girly space built over the garage with a loft bed and a rope ladder and a playhouse underneath for tea parties and board games.

When she outgrew the princess playhouse, she traded out the pink sheers for dark purple drapes she made from thrift store sheets and RIT dye. One weekend, she shoved a loveseat she found at a yardsale under the loft so she could close the curtains and shut out the world.

Quil worried that she was depressed.

Leah came over and crawled between the dark drapes, all hunched over and quiet like she gets sometimes. Taking a seat on the couch beside her, they sat in silence for a while.

No one understood moods like Leah.

She was full of them.

Leah asked if she wanted to talk about it.

Claire had crossed her arms, tucked in her chin, and snarled at the floor that she wasn't a kid anymore and that she'd take down the damn pink shit if she wanted to.

Leah had cocked her head, waiting.

And Claire burst into tears.

Her Aunt Leah, having been a pubescent teen girl herself once, gathered Claire up in a hug and rocked her, whispering that it was okay and everybody went through it and not to blame her Uncle Quil for not knowing. He'd never been a twelve year old girl and he'd certainly never gotten a period for the first time.

Claire laughed, a sniffling watery chuckle, into Leah's shirt.

In hushed whispers so those with super-hearing couldn't eavesdrop, Leah talked to her about all the girl stuff, promising to answer her questions, not just that day, but forever. She said maybe it was time to shop for bras, too, and that made Claire really happy. Every girl in fifth grade wore a bra but her.

Then Leah made up a big nest of blankets and pillows in Claire's little emo fortress and called her aunts, Rachel and Kim, to go pick up ice cream and chocolate and snacks. Her Aunt Bella came over with pizza, a laptop, and a stack of rom-coms on DVD. They crowded around the laptop in Claire's fort in the blanket nest with dozens of pillows—and one hot water bottle. Then they watched movies together and cried.

Because it felt good to cry because she felt like crying and sometimes a girl just needed to cry, _okay_?

It was exactly what she needed and none of her aunts thought there was anything weird about the fact that she just needed to cry for ten hours straight that one time.

They all shared stories about the crazy things their hormones had made them do.

Bella even made Jake drive her to Las Vegas one time when she was seven and a half months pregnant because she'd never been there and she decided she couldn't be a mother before she'd ever set foot in a casino or sat at a black jack table or eaten at a 99-cent Las Vegas buffet.

She said they got there and she didn't gamble so much as a penny. Bella was too practical to waste money like that.

She spent two days eating herself sick trying to keep up with Jake at the buffets.

Then they came home.

And they never spoke of it again.

When the aunts took their leave the following morning before dawn, Leah tucked her into bed with a fresh hot water bottle and a couple of Midol tablets. She fidgeted with a bottle of water, looking for somewhere to set it down by the bed, until Claire reached out and grabbed her hand, whispering, "Thank you, Aunt Leah."

Her expression softened to something tender and never before seen. Tears pooled in her eyes as she leaned over and pressed a kiss to Claire's forehead, "You're welcome. Love you, kiddo."

Claire watched her climb down from the loft and tidy up the room, gathering up trash the others missed as she padded around on silent feet. She set the full trash bin by the door.

Before she could open it, the door cracked open.

Quil peered in, mouthing, "Everything okay?"

Leah nodded, stepping out so they wouldn't disturb her, but Claire heard and saw it all anyway.

Quil wrapped Leah up in a hug, picking her up off her feet in those two massive arms, and kissed her breathless.

Her hands slid up over his broad shoulders and she buried her fingers in his hair for a minute, gasping for air against his mouth between kisses.

He pulled back and pressed a light kiss to her lips, trailing more of them up her jawline to her ear. He nipped the skin below and gave her another gentle squeeze as he nuzzled her throat.

She staggered like a drunk when he let her go.

* * *

The back door banged open, disrupting Claire's walk down memory lane. Quil came barreling through, still dressed in his work blues from the shop, her fourteen year old cousin, Jason, hanging on one arm, and his brother, Kyle, on the other. They were struggling, grappling with him, trying to tackle him to the ground.

Quil went about his business like he had no more than a pair of house flies on his back, filling a glass of water at the sink and chugging it noisily while her cousins grunted and huffed in annoyance. He eyed her suspiciously, "You remember to eat?"

"Yes,_ Dad_." She stuck her tongue out at him.

He sighed, defeated, lowering his arms and letting his muscles go lax until Jason and Kyle dropped to the floor in a surprised heap. He shooed them out of the kitchen. "You can ambush me again later. I almost felt it that time, I swear. Let me talk to Claire alone for a minute."

Jason and Kyle took off, whooping like warriors and fighting over who got the blue controller before one of their uncles came over to plant a flag and claim PS3 rights until after dinner.

He leaned against the sink, rolling up the sleeves of his striped work shirt to hide the grease stains from the lube job he'd worked on that afternoon. He watched her for another minute, then pushed off, pulling out a chair at the table. He turned it around and straddled it, leaning across the table to lay a hand on hers. "Talk to me Claire-Bear. What's wrong?"

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Nothing's wrong. It's just … I've been thinking about things."

He cocked his head, waiting. He knew the way her mind worked. Sometimes she just needed time to say what needed saying. He was like Leah that way—endless wells of patience.

"I'm your imprint, right?"

Claire could have knocked him over with a feather right then.

His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

"C- Claire … where did you hear that word?" Quil's expression darkened like someone was going to get a beat down—some uncle with a big mouth.

"I've always known the word," she said, rolling the memory around in her head, "and I think I know what it means even though it's different for you and me, right?"

"It is." He confirmed with a slow nod, crossing his bulging arms over his chest. The fabric of his uniform strained, pulling across his wide chest, making him look huge and intimidating to anyone who didn't know better.

His eyes followed each of her minute movements.

"How?"

"How is it different?" he checked.

She nodded.

"You were a baby when I imprinted because the Spirits knew you would need a family one day, a dad."

"But not a mom?" she asked, not to be rude or sarcastic. She just found it odd that the Spirits thought she would need a dad more than a mom when Leah could have imprinted on her, too, if that was the whole point.

"I- I don't know, kiddo. I've tried to do my best—" He was getting agitated, upset.

"Uncle Quil, stop." She laid a hand on his, her heart breaking a little at the lost and uncertain look in his eyes. "I never meant to imply that you haven't. I love you. You're my dad in every way that matters and you're a great one. I'm screwed up. I did this wrong," she fretted, drawing her hand back into her lap, twisting the napkin in her hands. Her hormones made her stupid, though. She always got teary when she was mad at herself.

She tried not to cry. She was frustrated and mad at herself, not sad.

"Claire-Bear, talk to me. I can't help if you don't tell me what's on your mind," he begged, trying to restrain himself. She could see the taut lines of muscle flexing and tugging as the imprint compelled him to gather her close and make it all better.

But she wasn't four years old anymore and it was time Quil got his life back, at least a little.

"Why don't you date?" she blurted out. "Is it the imprint? Won't it let you?"

"Claire…" he breathed. "No, honey. No, not _at all_." He ran a hand over his face. "I don't know what brought this on, but I- I've gone out a few times over the years. It's just … difficult."

"Why?"

He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, ending on a sigh.

"I'm thirty-two years old and raising three teenagers alone. Women my age… It's a responsibility _most_ people aren't ready for until they're driving home from the hospital with a Graco full of screaming newborn in the backseat. I have responsibilities that they can't understand, can't even relate to."

Claire understood then. Self-loathing ate at her. Her lips tightened. "Baggage. We're too much baggage for someone your age, so they find out because you're an upright guy who won't lie about having three kids and they never call back for the second date, right?" She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it was hard. Quil should be happy, but there the imprint had screwed him over.

Everyone else got a lifetime of happiness with their imprint-mate. Meanwhile, her beloved Uncle Quil got a lifetime of servitude and three teenagers who ate him out of house and home and constantly grew out of everything they owned.

She said as much aloud and Quil got pissed.

"Do you hear me complaining, Claire? Have I ever once given you reason to think I regretted the gift the imprint brought into my life?" His face was red with anger, but she didn't back down, couldn't. The bond was strong for her, too. She needed him to be happy.

"Gift," she scoffed. "You got shackled to me when you should have been making out with girls in the backseat of some old, ugly car like Uncle Jake and Uncle Embry! Instead, you were braiding hair and changing diapers and potty-training everything that moved! The Spirits fucked you over every chance they got and you rolled over and just kept taking it from them! You _keep_ taking it from them!" Her screech was loud enough to call every dog within a mile to their yard, including the three wolves on patrol.

Leah, Jake, and Paul crept as close as they dared, settling back on their haunches at the tree line to keep watch just in case Claire took off again. She never went far, but she did have a bad habit of running when she got overwhelmed by her emotions.

"You watch your mouth, young lady," Quil's open hand slapped the tabletop. "If I got fucked over, as you put it, it was of my own making. _My_ choice. I _chose_ this family. The imprint didn't force me to adopt three kids. I'm only imprinted on one of you. I love _all three of you_. My life has been complicated, absolutely, but it's full and I love it and I'm not going to listen to you disparage it just because it's not _your_ ideal."

He got up to leave.

She scrambled to untangle her legs. "Uncle Quil—"

"Let it go for a while, Claire." He hung his head, shoving his grease-stained hands in his pockets, fisting them, the muscles in his forearms straining with his anger.

"Please, just let me say this, okay?" she begged. She was doing this because she loved him. She didn't want to fight.

She wanted him to be happy, dammit.

He nodded sharply once, his patience at its end.

She climbed out of her chair on shaky legs, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of him.

Wrapping her arms around his waist, she waited until he relaxed and his arms closed around her.

Working up her nerve, she murmured into his chest, "I think you should ask Aunt Leah out."

He froze, drawing his head back a few inches to look into her eyes like she'd lost her mind.

"I've seen you watching her when you think no one is looking. Your eyes follow her. I-" She swallowed before admitting, "I saw you kiss her that one time, like she was your whole world for that one minute and you were hers. She couldn't even walk straight after. I can tell you love her and … the thing is, I know—we know—she loves us, too, you know? All of us."

Quil sighed.

"Your Aunt Leah is as busy with her life as I am with mine. She works long hours at the clinic and she has tribal duties like the rest of us. Besides, if it were going to happen—"

"It's not like you've ever asked her," Claire interrupted to point out. She knew she had him there.

"Because she's as likely to kick me in the nuts as she is to say 'yes'," he snorted.

"She wouldn't kick you."

"Claire…"

"She might punch you, just for fun and because you waited so long and you were stupid." She tilted her head, pretending to give it some thought. "But probably she would just punch you for fun."

A reluctant laugh bubbled up that Quil couldn't choke down.

"But when your nose is bleeding and she's standing there with her eyes all snappy and pissed, she'd probably call you an idiot for waiting so long to ask."

He sighed deeply again, but didn't bother to correct her language. Paul would just undo all his hard work later anyway.

"Christ, you're probably right, kid." He laid his head on hers, stroking the long curtain of raven's wing hair at her back and rumbling a soothing purr deep in his chest.

"So you'll ask her?" She tried not to let the excitement bleed into her voice, but she was practically bouncing.

"I'll think about it," he promised, the way parents do when they want to change the subject.

But Claire was already ten steps ahead, her whole body thrumming with excitement. "Where will you take her? You'll go on a real date, right? Like dinner or something in Port A? Oh! You could go to Seattle for the weekend. Me and Jay and Kyle could stay with Uncle Jake and Aunt Bella. They won't mind. Oh, oh, you need a suit! You'd wear a suit, right? And shoes. You can't wear your old sneakers or work boots. What kind of date would that be? You should wear that cologne that Aunt Sue got for you for Christmas two years ago. You never wear it, but it smells so good. I mean, she probably knows what you smell like underneath it anyway, but it might be nice if you smelled different for once because it would be special just for her—"

The sound of a throat clearing broke into Claire's excited babble. Quil was grateful. He loved the girl, but she could make a saint's ears bleed when she was on a roll.

They looked up together, seeking out the source of the noise.

Leah Clearwater stood framed in the doorway in an old T-shirt dress, leaning on the jam just inside the screen with Jake and Paul peering in over her shoulder, wearing huge grins.

Leah cleared her throat again, picking the forest out from under her nails. "Maybe he should ask me first before you take him suit-shopping, kiddo." She finally looked at Quil, an amused sneer on her face. "I'm waiting."

"You heard." He smirked.

Leah said nothing, feigning disinterest and crossing her arms with an annoyed, "Hmph! Who didn't? You two argue loud enough to wake the dead."

Quil crossed the kitchen, whisking her up with a bold flourish, dipping and trapping her in the steel cage of his arms.

A laugh caught in her throat before she shut it down and put her serious face back on.

His hands roamed where the kid couldn't see, trying to make her crack. "Leah Clearwater, will you go out with me?"

After several humming moments of careful thought, she finally grinned.

And punched him in the face.

When Quil woke up on the cold kitchen floor minutes later, Leah was leaning over him as Claire looked on, blinking owlishly.

She pursed her lips. "Told you."

Leah patted his cheek. "That was for waiting so goddamn long without speaking up. I love your kids like they're my own, too, you idiot. Go put on a clean shirt and scrub all that shit off your hands. If your nose is healed by seven, you're taking me out for dinner."


	2. Up in the Air

**Chapter 2: Up in the Air **

* * *

Claire Young-Ateara fretted and paced with nervous energy until Bella dragged her out of the house for a walk. Claire and her Uley-Ateara cousins were set to spend the weekend with the Blacks while their dad, Quil, went away for the weekend.

The whole weekend. On a long overdue date.

Claire squealed a little on the inside every time something happened to remind her it was real. Like stumbling into the kitchen for breakfast one morning the week before, she discovered Leah in her post-patrol T-shirt dress, spattered with flecks of mud, seated on the counter with her arms and legs wrapped around Quil. Leah's throat displayed a pattern of healing teeth marks. Eyes wide, Claire blinked in shock when the adults tightened their grip on one another, murmuring "good morning" in the breaths between kisses.

When Leah moaned and arched her back, Claire scooted out of the kitchen to warn her cousins.

They ate breakfast next door at Uncle Embry's that morning.

It wasn't the last time it happened, either, yet they still hadn't made time for a real date! Somebody needed to step up and give them a nudge, so she went to the original interfering materfamilias to beg for advice.

Aunt Bella.

Which is how she found herself on a bright Friday morning in June, walking with her bossy aunt to the one place Claire needed to visit from time to time to settle down and regroup. Between them, Claire and Bella picked a clutch of wildflowers to take to the cemetery in La Push. Bella tugged weeds free from the base of headstones as they meandered from the shelter of one shade tree to the next, discussing the pack's plans for the weekend.

Bella greeted Sam and Emily brightly, the way she would the living, reminding Claire of an oft-repeated lesson—the dead were never truly gone in La Push. The ancestors were only a thought or prayer away. Claire sat beside the old, familiar graves, eager to relay news of Quil's and Leah's plans for the weekend to her aunt and uncle, and her own special plans for the evening, too.

While Bella wandered off to say her own hellos to her deceased mother-in-law, Claire began the conversation, "Hi, Aunt Emmy, Uncle Sam. Miss you."

She touched her hand to her lips, then pressed her fingertips to the headstone with a loving smile.

"Sorry I've been away so long. Things have been kind of hectic and our routine got all weird. Dad asked Leah out weeks ago—well, I sort of nagged him to, but they put it off until they could get more than a few hours off together and then some other stuff came up … and they never got around to it." She huffed, annoyed at the "other stuff"; a trio of nomads breezed through the area, looking for trouble and found the pack.

"They've spent every Friday and Saturday night bumming around the house in comfy pants, watching superhero movies with the boys. Then, we have long, lazy weekends and wash cars and eat pizza and do even more boring, domestic, non-date stuff. That's totally not dating!" She threw her hands in the air in disgust.

Unburdening her secrets to her aunt and uncle was habit. Claire kept a secret like a champ if she had somewhere to whisper it aloud. At age seven, she confessed that little tidbit to Leah and her aunt brought her to the cemetery to walk among the markers of her ancestors. She reminded her of all those standing sentry as spirits, willing to listen when she needed an ear or to pray to for guidance.

Claire took the advice to heart, often visiting her loved ones in the quiet sanctuary of the Quileute cemetery. She cleared her conscience or shared news while she plucked dandelions around their final resting place.

"I have a date, too," she revealed to her silent audience. She knew Aunt Emily would have smiled and Uncle Sam probably would have scowled. Quil and Leah told her all about her departed aunt and uncle and she knew them well from the pack's own legends. "I want to tell Dad—about the date, but he has so much on his mind with work and the boys and now he's seeing Leah—**_kind of_**—and it's only a group date thing. When we go out just the two of us, he'll have to meet Dad. Leah and Aunt Bella said that would be okay since tonight's pretty informal. Cammie and her boyfriend, Brandon, will be there, too, so Uncle Jacob will have a wolf's eye view of the whole night when Bran phases in tomorrow. It'll be okay." She wondered, though, if she was trying to convince the spirits or herself.

"His name is Calder. Maybe you knew him. He was little back then. Calder is Cammie's fraternal twin—Collin's youngest siblings. His mom's a Black, not that it makes any difference. Twins turn up as often as girls in that family," she chuckled. "He's only six months older than me, but it might as well have been three years difference until a few months ago. I was still a kid in his mind until then—his bratty sister's best friend. Cooties—you know how boys are." She shrugged.

"Cammie said she caught him writing my name in one of his sketchbooks. He draws things, but he usually won't show anyone. Leah says he's a thinker—like Uncle Embry. He drew me a picture—Calder did, I mean. Look—" She fished the folded treasure from the pocket of her hoodie, unwrapping it carefully and smoothing it on the headstone. "It's the tale of the protectors. See the spirit wolves rising from the flames and smoke of the bonfire? And that's my face, right there, hidden in the flanks of the burly-looking wolf," she pointed.

"He's … special," she mumbled, then rolled her eyes. Ridiculous to blush, sitting in the middle of La Push, alone, surrounded by the dead who didn't give two rat's butts that she thought a boy was cute.

Shifting, she lay on her belly, feet kicking the air and head propped in her hands. "Anyway, that's not really why I came. The pack is ganging up on Aunt Leah and Dad today. No more patrols or kids or jobs or anything are getting in the way. Uncle Seth got Aunt Sue to cover the clinic and Uncle Jacob and Uncle Embry smoothed stuff over at the garage so Dad can go. Oh, yeah—I call him 'Dad' now. He likes that. I wish he told me sooner.

"Dad and Leah are going away for a whole weekend. Aunt Bella took care of that part—some friendly connection she has in Spokane. The pack got it into their heads that Dad and Leah don't know how to date or something. Fuck knows. Oops!" She hunched her shoulders, glancing down in apology. "Sorry, Aunt Emmy. Anyway, Aunt Bella had everybody write down ideas for dates and stick them in an envelope. Aunt Kimmy packed their bags for a bunch of possible dates and the pack is surprising them at lunch time today with an envelope full of first date ideas. It sounds like so much fun! They leave in a few hours!" Claire rolled to her back and double fist-pumped. "FINALLY!"

In the distance, Bella hooted with laughter.

* * *

"Technically, we've been on a date before."

Claire grinned, amused, when her dad tried to wrap his arms around Leah, but she squirmed away, jabbing the air in his direction. She narrowed her eyes, "We were young and stupid. That was not a date. That was a one-night, drunken, moment of temporary insanity—"

"An awesome one," Quil murmured, a secretive smile curving his lips as he trained his eyes on the floor, peeking furtively once in Claire's direction as if he wasn't sure she was old enough to hear the conversation.

Claire snorted. Sixteen years old and he still worried she'd drop an F-bomb in church or ask what a hummer is in front of one of the Elder ladies. To be fair, Paul was a monumentally bad influence.

"Not a date," Leah barked, crossing her arms.

"I don't know. I think Quil might be right," Bella nodded in agreement with each word. Thinking it over, she ticked off bullet points on her fingers. "You got dressed up, you danced and had a good time, you had a nice meal and a little too much wine—on someone else's dime, and a night of—" She glanced at Claire and dropped her voice to a stage whisper, "—_the wild sex_. **_That_** is a date." Bella raised an eyebrow.

Leah growled. "Yeah…? How would you know? What's the last date you went on, tick-licker?"

Jacob growled back, "We went to a classic car show—and she's never licked a tick!"

Bella's eyes widened and dropped to the floor. She half-cleared her throat, shuffled her feet, and doggedly refused to make eye contact.

"Oh, come on! Seriously?!" Jacob threw his hands in air, kicked away from the table, and stalked to the back door.

"Not the one you think!" his mate insisted.

"Oh my god," Jacob banged his head on the door frame.

Claire giggled and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"That's worse!" Stomping away, he resembled a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.

"Oh, it is not. Don't be ridiculous," the tiny brunette huffed. "Jasper dared me to lick an ice cube and Emmett said that wasn't a challenge. I wouldn't blush if I licked an ice cube, so I had to lick him."

The kitchen fell silent for several long moments.

"So…?" Impatience got the best of Quil. "Did you blush?"

Bella's face turned red and her brows dropped as her Irish heated up. "He cheated!"

"How?" the pack chorused.

"He grabbed my butt and I stumbled and fell against him, but he was sitting down, so I fell into his lap, and he picked me up—which there was absolutely NO need for—and I ended up straddling him. By the way, vampires are hard everywhere, just FYI," Bella ended conversationally.

Claire cackled and gasped when her dad blinked, speechless. She apologized, "Sorry! Sorry, totally inappropriate response." She hid her face, biting her lip to prevent more laughter.

Bella's anger cooled when she noticed her husband's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, too.

"Add 'licked a corpse' to Bella's list of weird shit," Paul said to no one in particular. "Moving on… We have some _fun_ shit for once, instead of more of the weird and wonderful crap that clings to Bella Black." He shook a manilla envelope at Quil and Leah as Bella swatted at his head.

Quil snorted when Leah backed away from the proffered envelope like a venomous snake, so he bit the bullet and asked. "What's in the envelope?" He plunged a hand into the envelope's jumbled mess of folded and crumpled notes, and pulled out a small slip of paper stuck to something weighty.

"What's it say?" Leah crossed her arms, doubt scribbled across her brow.

"In Paul's handwriting, it says 'Q, Buy the woman underwear. You deserve a little mystery.' It's a gift card to Frederick's of Hollywood."

"I checked—there's one in Spokane _and_ in Seattle!" Paul shouted as the pack hooted and howled.

Bella growled, "Oh, for god's sake, I knew I should have chaperoned you idiots when you wrote your suggestions." Her aunt snatched the envelope from Quil and rifled through it for a few decent suggestions.

"We made a list of first date ideas and put them in here," Bella explained. "A friend in Spokane owed me a huge favor. She wanted Jake and me to take a long weekend and enjoy her company's services, but this is how she and I worked it out instead." She held up a hand. "I insisted, so no arguing. It's a done deal. She owns a private concierge service, so your weekend is covered."

Shaking the envelope, she found some of the more traditional first date ideas. "Look—see? There are normal date ideas in here. 'The Cherry Blossom Festival at The Seattle Arboretum', 'Dinner and dancing at SkyCity in the Space Needle', and …" Bella plucked a third slip of paper from the envelope, then snorted in disgust. "Who let my dad put in his two cents?" She glared at Jacob and Embry.

"Why?" Embry snickered. "What does it say?"

" 'Take the little lady to a gun range. Nothing works up her mother like squeezing off a few rounds with a man who knows what to do with his sidearm.' " Bella gagged and covered her mouth, horrified at the thought of Sue handling Charlie's "weapon".

Leah joined the gagging. "I hope there's a date in the envelope that says 'Visit a therapist', too."

* * *

Three hours later, Claire watched her dad and Leah as they boarded a helicopter hand-in-hand while the co-pilot stowed their bags in the cargo hold. The door at the back of the chopper clicked shut and the other co-pilot gave them simple instructions regarding hand signals and their charted scenic route over Olympic National Park.

"Had Embry slip this one into the envelope for me!" Claire heard her dad shout before the doors closed as the engine whirred and the blades began to rotate slowly while the co-pilots completed other pre-flight duties.

Leah grinned and laid a hand on his arm. "You knew they were planning this?"

Claire laughed and clapped her hands over her face in delight when her dad answered, cupping his hand behind Leah's ear to be heard, "The pack sucks at keeping secrets and besides—Embry? Sings like a canary when Bella's brownie recipe is on the line!"

"You can bake?" Leah threw back her head, cackling. "Stupid question—of course you can!" Adjusting the ear protection over her head, she waited, amused, while Quil fussed and checked the straps of her safety harness.

"I'm a man of many talents, Miss Clearwater!" He leaned over and nipped at the skin beneath the angled edge of her undercut. Claire missed the words he said, but the sparkling eyes and blushing smile of her aunt said it all.

Theirs was an atypical love story, and only the beginning. Claire smiled and waved with her cousins as the helicopter rose up in the air, hovered, then turned to take in the view over First Beach before circling back around to head out over the national park.

* * *

Checking her phone for the fiftieth time later that night, Claire sighed as a howl sounded in the distance.

"No word yet?" Bella asked, approaching the breakfast bar with a pair of steaming mugs.

Claire shook her head, "No."

"And it's killing you, right?" the Alpha's mate grinned, sipping her tea.

Flopping back in her chair, arms spread wide as she slumped in dramatic teen defeat, Claire moaned, "Oh god, _yes_. They know how nosy I am! They promised pictures! I'm going to worry all weekend if I don't hear something soon! I'm supposed to go out tonight. I don't want to be rude and check my phone the whole time!"

She growled in frustration. "They have phones! How much effort is it to click and hit 'send'?! They went on a helicopter ride over the national park six _hours_ ago. They should already be on the carousel at Riverfront Park in Spokane. Seriously, they probably have, like, dozens of pictures and videos to send by now!"

"Claire…" Bella chuckled with an indulgent grin. "It's a pretty safe bet they're enjoying themselves if they're not checking in with you constantly. Don't take offense, but you're the very last person they should have on their minds right now. No news is the best news."

"It is," Jacob's baritone voice rumbled as he jogged up the stairs to the storm door, her uncles Embry, Paul, and Seth in his wake.

Bella turned and curled her lip in disgust. "Why are you covered in black— _Shit._ Did you kill another vampire?" Her eyes widened.

"Sorry, but it's business as usual for the rest of us. Jared is still out, tracking, and Brady and Collin are working with the new kid who phased this afternoon." He pointed at Claire. "Nobody says a word to Quil or Leah if they check in. She's already worried about that girl who came into the clinic yesterday. The last thing we need is Super Dad's instincts humming off the rails, too, pushing him to come home and take care of another kid." He winced. "Sorry, Claire, that sounded—"

She smiled and shook her head, amused. "Like you have my dad's number."

He cocked his head in lupine curiosity, "Dad?"

"Leah said he likes hearing me call him dad. I always just did it in front of other people because they asked less questions about us, but when Leah told me—" Her lip quivered. "I call him Dad now. I should've before. I just didn't want him to feel more trapped by the imprint or to take anything away from kids he might have someday. I knew how he felt about Leah, and me and the boys always hoped—"

"Oh, honey." Bella scrambled to set down her mug and gather the girl into her arms when Claire sniffled.

Jacob kissed the crown of her head. "He does love hearing you guys call him 'Dad'. He loves _being_ your dad." He laid his cheek on her head and sandwiched her between his chest and his petite wife. "He's never felt trapped. No more crazy talk. He'd be the first to tell you an imprint is a gift to those who need it."

She nodded, soaking in the comfort and warmth of her Alpha uncle and aunt. "It is. I'm so lucky. My life could have been really different. I know that."

Born with empathetic tear ducts, Embry piped up in a mock-wavering voice, "What's an uncle gotta do to get in on this hug?"

Claire clicked her tongue and huffed, thrusting her hands out from between the others.

Laughing, Embry swooped down on her, shoving his way into the sandwich to hug his best friend's baby girl. Paul pried him away to steal a kiss and tell her Quil was the lucky one. Seth took a seat at the breakfast bar, waiting patiently for his turn while the others worked around her moody downturn and got her giggling again.

At the sound of soft footsteps padding up the porch stairs, Claire turned, the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips as she recognized her Uncle Jared, followed by three others—Brady and Collin, and another dark head, shorter than the rest by a good four inches.

"He's got some growing to do yet," Jared joked, "but we all did at that age. Jacob, you know Collin's little brother—"

"Calder," Claire gasped.

The pack parted when their eyes met, and Claire felt something she never dreamed of happening the first time she experienced it, much less twice in one lifetime.

Her best friend's fraternal twin—the boy she loved since boys had cooties—stood a head taller, broad as a linebacker, and built like a Mack truck. He gazed at Claire like she held the answers to all of life's greatest mysteries.

"Claire…" the new wolf whispered reverently.

The pack's collective gasp fell away as its young members surrendered to the pull.

"So…" she heard Embry's voice as if from a distance. "Who's gonna tell Quil?"

* * *

**A/N: **_You guys love cliffies, right? ;) Wanna read the date...? (^-^) I just finished writing it today and it still needs editing, but you know what you need to do to get Part Two of the date, right? Leave me some love in the comments, Atearawater Pep Squad! (^_^) Can't wait to hear your thoughts!_

_Thanks to my beta/PR, **meliz875**, for making the time to go over this with me and not taking any of my shit. Love you, honey. Extra hugs go to jarms. too, for talking me through some rough spots over the past month and a half._

**About this chapter:** _This is **PART ONE** of a two-part sequel written for **Silverfires** for **Tricky Raven's 3rd Annual Author/Artist Silent Auction**._


	3. The Earth Moved

**Chapter 3: The Earth Moved**

* * *

Jacob drew the short straw by default when Claire failed to notice her phone tumble off the edge of the table as it vibrated with an incoming message. With nimble fingers, he caught it inches above the floor.

Filled with a sudden sense of foreboding, Jacob read the text from Quil: _"Humor me - everything ok?"_

"_Never better," _Jacob tapped out on the screen without so much as a hiccough from his conscience. _"Talk to you in the morning?"_

"_Ok. Call if you need anything. Phone will be on. Night, kiddo."_

The alpha stared at the phone in disbelief. He expected Quil to demand answers or to hear Claire's voice. That was … just a little _too_ easy. Unsettled by the implications, he set the phone aside and took a deep breath. He promised Quil and Leah three days without any pack business and he'd move heaven and earth to give it to them. They deserved a break. Time to lay down the law for his underage pack members until they spoke to their parents.

* * *

Damn phone. Claire slapped at it blindly, swore, and blinked into the harsh rays of light pouring through her bedroom window.

Sunday morning. Two days since Calder phased and turned her life inside out. Again.

As a newly-phased wolf, Calder needed a human-free place to crash for the weekend, so Bella decamped the Black and Ateara kids and headed over to the Ateara house for a few days while Uncle Jacob spent the weekend at the Black's place, coaching Calder back into his skin time and again.

Claire sighed.

She heard Jacob tell Bella over the phone that Calder's temper would be pretty hair trigger for a while, being forcibly separated from his imprint for safety's sake.

The petulant, selfish inner sixteen year old voice she did her best to rise above murmured in the back of her mind, pointing out rather unhelpfully that he imprinted on her and could never—_would never_—hurt her. As if he possessed that kind of control, as if her dad wouldn't come down on him like the wrath of God if Calder so much as hugged her too hard.

A mine field is what it was.

Forced to concede her alpha uncle probably knew exactly what he was doing, Claire tried to make the best of it. When Jacob assigned Calder to morning patrols, he also gave permission for a brief visit for the newly-imprinted pair—in wolf form only and from a distance. Claire adhered to her uncle's strict instructions yesterday morning, waving from the window and wishing her wolf a good day and safe patrol.

So when Saturday night rolled around, anticipation made for insomnia and a late night, followed by an even later Sunday morning. Blinking awake at eleven, her breath caught in her throat.

She missed her chance.

Tempted to give into self-pity, she bargained with herself. She could explain to her aunt. With a wolf to chaperone, surely they could see each other later in the day. Dinner at the latest, right? Right, so … she'd just get her shit together, get dressed and—

A flash of bronze flickered at the edge of her field of vision. Through the kaleidoscope of reflected shapes dancing on her ceiling, she spotted a hazy outline in familiar colors. Smiling, she closed her eyes and inhaled before launching herself at the window to throw up the sash and greet her red and white wolf on his second morning of training.

Calder yipped once in greeting, playfully pawing the ground at the rear edge of the yard. His puffy red tail wagged, the white tip of it waving like a banner as he gamboled amongst the shadows.

Waving, Claire blew him a kiss. She laughed in delight when he leapt and twisted in the air as if to catch it.

"You're such a goober," she whispered. "Sorry I overslept. I'll see you at dinner tonight, if we're allowed. You better go before we get in trouble. Run safe, learn wolfy things!" Her fingers wiggled in farewell.

The wolf bowed over his front paws and yipped again, nodding in understanding and disappearing into the trees.

Claire sighed, resigned. She understood the restrictions, but she didn't have to like them. The Ateara house overflowed with young teens as her cousins' and the Black kids' friends came and went all weekend. They piled in everywhere, taking up every couch and square foot of floor space in their rec room for a two-night sleepover.

As the only girl and missing her wolf, Claire kept to her room and flipped the lock. Not that it mattered. Her aunt Bella had hearing like a werewolf. Every time Calder got within ten yards of the house, Bella called upstairs to remind her it was only temporary—code for "new wolves are unstable and you can't visit without a wolf chaperone yet".

Dammit.

Jacob promised her it would get easier when her dad and Leah came home. Down by two experienced wolves, the pack had to deal with a rash of nomads passing through, so the patrol schedule stretched a little thinner than usual, even with a pair of new wolves.

"Claire…?" Bella called upstairs when the window rattled as Claire lowered it.

"I know!" she snapped, flinching when a soft rap sounded at the door. Cracking it open, she met her aunt's gaze with a guilty smile and whispered, "I just opened it to say hi. He was alone and he stayed in the trees."

"It's okay." Bella laid her hands on Claire's cheeks and kissed her forehead. "I was just coming up to tell you your dad called me because you didn't answer your phone. He worries when he doesn't hear from you for nearly three days."

"I don't know what to say to him," Claire admitted. "Uncle Jacob said not to discuss pack business until they get home."

"Jake's not wrong about that. When you tell him what happened on Friday, it should be in person, but that doesn't mean you have to cut yourself off from him." She brushed the hair out of Claire's eyes. "He still needs you and loves you. You're his daughter and a big part of his life. Maybe he wants you to feel like you're not being left out now that he's dating, or wants your opinion on flowers or where to take her for brunch. You're a woman as well as a daughter. He values your opinion very much."

Claire eyed her aunt. "How'd you get to be so smart?"

"Naturally gifted. I married the pretty one. One of us had to be the smart one." She winked.

"Uncle Jacob is pretty?" Claire giggled.

"Embarrassingly so at times. Taking him to a PTA meeting is a nightmare." Bella rolled her eyes.

"I bet." The teen brightened considerably, imagining her aunt's exasperation. "I've been to the grocery store with Dad—no ring on his finger. Yeah. I _sooo_ get that."

"Speaking of your dad." The buzzing of Bella's phone interrupted the commiserating.

"Tell him I'm gonna call him in two minutes." She dashed away to brush her hair and grab her phone.

* * *

Two minutes and twenty-one seconds later, Quil accepted the video call. "You're late!" he joked, propping the phone up while he made coffee in the well-appointed kitchen of the hotel suite. His bleary eyes, wild hair, and the trace of chocolate smeared under his jaw told the story clearer than any anecdote he'd share with his teenage daughter.

Quil had a good night.

"Sorry!" Claire apologized, frazzled and crazy-eyed. "I woke up with bedhead. This place is crawling with twelve year olds. I'm camped out, hiding in my room." She tidied up, gathering dirty clothes and neatening the bedspread while she spoke over her shoulder to the webcam on her desk. "How's Spokane? Is it amazing? I bet it's amazing. Aunt Bella said you were only going to be in Seattle on Friday, then fly to Spokane the rest of the weekend. I heard the riverfront is fun. That's where you're staying, right?"

"Yeah, Spokane. It's great—got a balcony with a view of the water over the park on the promenade. You said you're at home?" Quil's eyebrows dropped, concerned with the change of plans. "Is everything okay?"

Claire paused, struggling to work around her uncle's request to hold off divulging any news on pack business until their return. "Something came up, so Uncle Jacob sent us over here with Aunt Bella. Uncle Embry's been stopping by all the time. Everybody's fine!" she hurried to assure him.

Staring at her like a bug under glass, his eyes narrowed. "Did Jacob order you not to tell us any bad news?"

"Nope!" she answered honestly with a grin. Jacob ordered her not to tell them any _pack news_.

Quil eyed her, but let it go for the time being as he carried his coffee and a plate piled high with fruit and danishes to the living room to set on the table. He turned the camera around and walked to the sliding balcony doors, panning slowly across the incredible view to sate his daughter's curiosity.

"It _is_ a pretty great view," Claire admitted before poking at her dad with a devilish grin. "You know … _romantic?_ It's looks really romantic. Is that an empty bottle of champagne I see on the table?" she teased.

Her cheek dimpled when Quil turned the camera on his red face. He tried to scowl. "We _did_ go on a date and, yes, we drank champagne. People do that—grown up people with college degrees, people who are over thirty who have careers and mortgages and car payments, whose parents approve—"

"So…" Claire didn't want to cut him off, but her dad played the "do as I say, not as I do" song often enough. No need to hear it again. She fidgeted, parted her lips, then clamped her mouth shut. Dying to know more, she wasn't sure what to ask or if she was being nosy.

_Who is she kidding? Of course she's being nosy!_

But Quil knew his girl. "Everything's fine here, too," he assured her, returning to the living room and his breakfast.

"Aunt Leah?" she asked as he settled down to eat and ran a hand through his hair to tame the wild mess.

"Sleeping in." Holding the phone aloft, he sat still until the faint, rumbling snores of her aunt drifted through the phone. Leah slept like the dead.

Wary, but worried enough to need reassurance, Claire ventured a follow-up, "So why aren't you still asleep?"

He angled the phone towards the couch from the coffee table, sliding aside his mug when Claire grumbled about the blocked lens. "Dunno. Feels weird I guess—the change in routine, nobody shouting to ask where their sneakers are or if I signed a permission slip. And I haven't phased in a couple days. The wolf is happy—because _Leah_—" He grinned, unabashed. "But he could use a good, long run and stretch—no matter how content. Yeah, restless, I guess."

When he shrugged it off, she decided to change the subject—for now. Tucking her feet under her butt, she twisted back and forth in the swivel chair as she addressed the webcam. "I'm dying to know how it went, but I know it's none of my business." With an anticipatory gleam in her eyes, she tucked the fingertips of both hands in her mouth—an old nervous habit.

"You sure you're only sixteen?" he demanded.

Her eyes widened. "What? Why?"

"We took a few of your suggestions," he admitted, easing into the conversation, hands clasped between his knees. "You had some great ideas."

"Really?" she gasped, then leaned in, a grin splitting her face. "Which ones? What did she wear? What did you do? Tell me everything!"

Quil raised an eyebrow.

She snickered. "Okay… Not _everything_. Highlight reel?"

Nodding, he reached out of frame and dragged a stack of oddments and pieces of paper into view. He held up a matchbook for SkyCity at the Space Needle. "We started the weekend in Seattle after a long flyover of the national park…"

* * *

"_This is different." Leah remarked as Quil offered a hand to help her from the town car amid the bustling sounds of a Friday night in the city._

_Lifting her hand, he pressed his lips to the elegant fingers curled over his. "Different is good."_

* * *

"Oh my god!" Claire squealed, bouncing in her chair. She gripped the armrests so hard, her knuckles turned white. "Did she die? I would have died." Affecting a dramatic sigh, she flopped bonelessly in her chair and threw a teasing grin at her dad.

Quil snorted. "Are you going to listen? Or kibitz and comment the whole time?"

"I can't do both?" She pouted and shoved hard, spinning her chair in childish delight. When she stopped, they eyed each other over the long distance connection and smiled—old buddies, peas in a pod, partners in crime. She loved her dad like no one else in her life, loved the way he knew her and let her have her moment and her fun.

She loved him, simple as that.

He cocked an eyebrow and waited.

Claire pretended to zip her lip, crossed her heart, and made a silent motion for him to continue.

* * *

_Glancing around the plaza, Leah inquired, "So, where to? Or are we making it up as we go?"_

"_We have reservations upstairs." He hooked his thumb to indicate the Seattle landmark overhead._

_Her eyes trailed the post-modern lines of the city's most famous building until they disappeared in the clouds. "We wouldn't want to be late." Adjusting her wrap against the damp Seattle air, she took the offered arm as Quil led her to their evening destination. _

_Exiting the elevator a few minutes later, he spoke to the maitre d and nearly missed the sight of Leah baring her shoulders as she loosened the silk wrap to hand it over to the coat room attendant. The glittering golden dress clung to her curves, striking him mute. Its neckline highlighted the long, delicate clavicles he loved to kiss and the satiny glow of her copper complexion. Long-limbed and graceful, she glided across the foyer to join him._

"_All set?" she asked, taking his arm with a steady hand. Unable to resist, he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close to press a kiss to the spot beneath her ear. Her scent, her proximity, her acquiescence all combined to drive him quietly insane._

_She nestled under his arm, fitting to him like pieces of a puzzle. He closed his eyes against the fantasies come to life, playing on repeat in his mind's eye—this, years of it—decades more of __this__. He wanted it all with her._

_It was going to be a long night._

"_Follow me," the host replied, leading them to a little-known private dining room. He laid hand-written chef's table menus out and popped the cork on the champagne as they drifted to the wide window to take in the view of Puget Sound. "The private dining room is yours for the evening. There's an outer door at the end of the panoramic window that slides back to give you access to the balcony." He pressed the power button on a small device behind the table and soft music spilled into the room from hidden speakers. "When you're ready to order or need beverage service, press the red button on the wall—" He pointed. "and wait for it to turn green. Enjoy your evening." He excused himself._

_They stood quietly for several long moments—she, riveted by the cityscape, he, lost in his own thoughts, wondering if this was real, if she was real._

"_The view is incredible," Leah breathed, touching her fingers to the glass. It fogged, the halo billowing outward from the warm gust of breath._

"_It is," Quil agreed, but he'd argue his was better as he took in the view of Seattle and the Sound framed by the curve of Leah's shoulder. He pressed his lips to her skin, ghosting across the bare flesh as goosebumps raced down her arm behind his touch. He kissed the gentle slope, sliding his hands along the length of her arms to cup her elbows. Encouraged by her purring rumble, he slid his hands down her arms until hers laid over his. He laced their fingers together and drew her arms up to wrap around her middle. Taking up a gentle swaying motion, he whispered, "I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life."_

"_Quil…" She leaned into his embrace._

"_Dance with me?" If she looked into his eyes, she would have seen the "Stay with me", the "Don't ever leave", the "I'll fight for you because you're worth it". _

_She would have seen the longing, the love written plainly on his face._

_An exaggerated sway of her hips and a tightened grip gained his attention. With a smile in her voice, she teased, "You mean I'm not already?"_

"_Dancing with me?" A low laugh rumbled in his chest as he dragged the beginnings of a five o'clock shadow across her shoulder. "You've been dancing with me for years—you just didn't know it."_

"_Hmm…?" Moving as if to turn, she met his eyes while he held her fast._

"_I take a step forward," he led her as he spoke, a step forward. _

"_You take one back." He stepped again, drawing her into the figure of a simple waltz. "You make a move, I give you plenty of room so you don't feel crowded and rabbit off again." Drawing her arm up to rest behind his head, he slid his hand along its length, chasing it with kisses to the shoulder as she loosened her hold and the arm fell when she leaned into the heated press of lips._

_Skimming her throat, he nipped gently. Teasing and tasting her skin, ghosting across it with the tip of his nose, he pushed the strap aside to nibble on the spot that made her back arch and her head drop on his shoulder in surrender. He murmured, "Don't you think it's time we change the steps in this dance?" _

_Turning in his arms, she laid a hand on his biceps and he barely resisted the urge to flex under her hold. He grasped her other hand and brought it to his lips to pay it the same homage the other received before dinner, turning her in the easy steps of another slow waltz learned at the Akalat center when they ran wild on the rez for hours every day as kids—except during summer rec._

"_You remember?" he asked, leading her in the simple figure._

_Smiling in contentment, she replied, "I do." She tucked her head under his chin and Quil fumbled, nerves twitching in his gut, making him feel twelve years old all over again. _

"_Your hands were sweaty and sticky." She chuckled, then sighed quietly when his hand slid down the curve at the small of her back. "And you had a comic book in the back pocket of your shorts. You had Funyuns for lunch and your mom made you go to summer rec because she worried Jake's Game Cube was rotting your brain."_

"_Jacob danced with Embry to avoid getting paired up with a girl so they could learn the steps and get out early." Quil snickered, remembering the pained expressions on their faces and Embry's mortification when Jake picked him as partner._

"_But not you," she whispered, the heated words warming him from the inside out._

"_What?" He pulled back, amber brown eyes searching her face as he struggled to recall where he was was, and when, lost in the memories of hot summer days and smooth skin._

"_Quil…?" She waited patiently with an indulgent grin for him to catch up._

_The goofy smile stayed when his eyes cleared, "Yeah?"_

"_You were the only boy tall enough to dance with me. You took your lumps like a champ, though. I loved you for that. You remember?" Her eyes glittered with the memory of a moment he barely recalled, but not in the same way. He was younger, after all, and she was the goddess who made him trip over his words every time her eyes met his._

"_I was terrified—deathly afraid I would trip or step on you," he admitted with a wry smile and pink cheeks. "You were tall, but so slim, I could have wrapped my arms around you with room to spare. You wanted to learn the dance and you knew the steps, so I followed your feet, and the teacher kept yelling at me to stop looking at __my__ feet."_

"_I remember." She nodded, smiling fondly as his hand spanned her back and they turned a flawless figure across the small dining room space._

_Quil recalled the moment, his tone wistful,__ "You smiled when you told me to forget about my feet—the floor wasn't going anywhere. I finally looked into your eyes and didn't pass out." He took a deep, shuddering breath and confessed, "I would have followed you anywhere, but you were wrong about one thing."_

_Her eyes met his, mirroring the expression in them in his memory. "About what?" she asked._

"_The earth moved and I stumbled, head first, in love with you."_

* * *

"Dead. I am dead," Claire slumped in her chair. "Did she melt? I'm melting. Can I just…? Ugh! I want to hug you, and her, and you again!" She twirled in her chair and thrust her hands in the air victoriously. "That is the sweetest thing ever!" She squealed and hunched over, stomping her feet.

"Almost," Quil agreed, running a hand nervously through his hair. He bowed his head.

Claire stopped her victory dance. "What?"

"I wanted to show you something before I show Leah." Reaching out of frame past the pile of souvenirs, he fumbled and rocked the camera. Sunlight caught the object in his hands, blinding her momentarily as he continued, babbling and out of character, "I know this might seem sudden, but we've known each other for years and, well… Friday, something happened, like a light bulb went off in my head or some switch flipped. I don't know. I came to my senses— I realized—"

Swallowing the ball of nerves rising in the back of her throat, Claire almost couldn't bear to look.

She knew exactly what happened on Friday.

"I packed it just in case, but I wasn't planning on anything in particular for awhile." He shrugged, fidgeted, clicked the thing in his hand twice in a nervous gesture. "It is what it is. I wasn't kidding about dancing around her all this time. On Friday, me and the wolf finally got it together and decided we waited long enough—all of us. You think she'll like it?"

The angle of the camera shifted when Quil leaned over to whip the drapes and block the light. Claire lost her breath. "Oh my god."

Nestled in black velvet, an icy white diamond flanked by tiny peach-colored stones winked in the filtered light.

* * *

_**A/N:**__ OMFG, I know, right? RIGHT? _

_Exactly. _

_*sighs*_

_QUIL. _(^_^)

_Thanks again to my writing partner, best friend, and Gal Friday, __**meliz**__, for all the hand-holding she's done to help me figure out how to write the romantic stuff. I did my best and she's been my rock and helped make it even better while I navigated these unfamiliar waters. *hugs* This chapter has been given one final fluff since her last review of the previous draft, so any errors are entirely and completely my own. __Thanks also go to jarms and mewlingquimlover for their patience and encouragement. This is one of the more difficult things I've written. I'm very fortunate in the awesome, supportive friends I have who help me along the way._

**About this chapter: **_This is **PART TWO** of a two-part continuation of ADI written for Silverfires for __**Tricky Raven's 3rd Annual Author/Artist Silent Auction**__. I'm __unofficially__ marking this story complete for now, but I plan to revisit it again someday when a fresh idea strikes for a flash or follow-up that works with my ideas for future storylines in this AU. My outline for future chapters centers primarily around Claire. Let me know in the reviews if you'd like to read more and what sort of thing you're looking forward to in this AU. I'll see what I can do. ;D (I know I still owe a bunch of you replies to your reviews, but I've been swamped with projects lately. Please forgive me and I'll do my best to make it up to you.) For now, I need to go put all my time and energy into a little something meliz and I are working on together, temporarily dubbed "COLLABY". It's a silent auction piece we're writing for GeezerWench. Keep an eye out for that, hopefully very soon and under its real title (which will not be "COLLABY", for obvious reasons). If you're reading this on FFn, be aware that it's entirely possible COLLABY will be posted exclusively on Tricky Raven, so if you want to read it and get a notification when it's posted, go check out TR, sign up, and accept Mist's friend request so she can send you fic invites! Tell them ChrissiHR sent you!_


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